1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a mouthwash composition. More particularly, the present invention relates to a mouthwash composition that can eliminate bad breath and prevent periodontal disease.
2. Description of Related Art
The bad breath is one of the problems to be avoided most for people who need to have face-to-face contact with others. Severe bad breath will affect social relation and activities of individuals.
Bad breath mainly comes from undesirable smells emitting by the volatile compounds in mouth, e.g. volatile sulfides, short-chain fatty acids, polyamines, alcohols, phenols, alkanes, ketones, and nitrides. In particular, volatile sulfides is one of the major causes for the bad breath. A research had been presented (Tonzetich J, Richter V J. Evaluation of volatile odoriferous components of saliva. Arch Oral Biol, 9:39-45, 1964) that either ammonia or sulfide produces more unpleasant odor in mouth by adding whole saliva into different substances. The result of the research showed that mixing whole saliva with compounds containing thiol functional groups (—SH) after 2 hours would produce obvious odor, while it had to take 20 hours for ammonia, formed by mixing whole saliva with nitrides, to produce the noticing unpleasant odor.
When oral bacteria, e.g. Gram-negative, decompose the protein substances with sulfur amino acids, e.g. food debris, saliva, and desquamation of oral epithelium, they produce odorous volatile sulfides: hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, and dimethyl mercaptan. To effectively eliminate the bad breath, the amount of sulfides in mouth has to be reduced first.
On the other hand, it is known that the main compositions of dental plaque are the inorganic and organic elements in saliva, food debris, and the oral bacteria. If the dental plaque is further calcified, it will produce dental calculus, and lead to periodontal disease. Therefore, in addition to the functions of cleaning mouth and reducing oral odors, it is also important for mouthwash or oral cleaning composition to reduce the amount of harmful oral bacteria to decrease the formation of dental plaque.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,753,217 discloses a method for reducing oral malodor, in which a solution of sodium chlorite and a metal ion is provided as mouth rinse; however, the method can only suppress the bad breath, but not literately eliminate the unpleasant oral odors. In addition, Taiwanese Pat. No. 1305497 provides a dual component dentifrice, which may more effectively eliminate the oral odors than the previous method, but has to add other necessary ingredients, e.g. thickeners, and humectants. As such, not only the manufacturing cost is increased, but also irritation and damage occurs in gums and crowns from chlorine dioxide mixed with the dentifrice.
Therefore, it is the main issue in the art to produce bad breath-eliminating mouthwash in low cost.